Ren&eacute A. Guzman: Brian K. Vaughan speaks! Part 1 of 2

Late last year, I had the pleasure and privilege of talking with one of my favorite comic writers, Brian K. Vaughan. The only stipulation/request was that I table the talk until around the release of the last issue of “Y: The Last Man.”

We first talked briefly about the Hollywood writers’ strike and Vaughan’s writing work on “Lost.” Of the former, BKV said that like other striking writers he’s losing out now so future writers get a fair shake in revenues. As for what juicy bits he could say about “Lost” — what, are you kidding?

Which brings us to “Y,” the last issue. Naturally we talk about the end of “Y,” but I also got Vaughan to chat about his other projects, such as “Ex Machina” and swapping comic titles with “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” mastermind Joss Whedon.

Today in the first half of my interview, we focus on Vaughan’s thoughts on “Y” and working with “Y” artist and co-creator Pia Guerra. Check back tomorrow for Vaughan on his other works, including which artist(s) he’d love to work with.

Ren&eacute A. Guzman: Obviously the big thing I want to ask you about is with wrapping up “Y: The Last Man.” And I got to tell you, I kind of jumped on this title a little late and am so looking forward to my birthday because my wife got me trades to help fill in the gaps and I’m really looking forward to that. [I've since read those trades and developed an even deeper appreciation for this comic.]

Tell me, what can you tease about this last issue coming up? How has that been for you to wrap up such a stellar series that’s been so well-received even outside of the comics industry?

From BKV.tv

Brian K. Vaughan: “Thank you. It’s been really surreal. It’s the ending that I’ve planned — Pia and I both have planned since the very first page of the very first issue. And I suppose I did second-guess myself a lot, since I was a twenty-something kid when I first pitched the idea to Vertigo. So I keep thinking, why should I have allegiance to that dumb kid’s idea for an ending when I like to think I’m a much better writer now. But, you know, I give that kid all the credit in the world for coming up with this concept, so I feel enough loyalty to him to finish it the way he intended. Looking at it now, I do think it’s 100 percent the right ending. I’m really proud of it. It’s pretty cool.”

Ren&eacute: Did growing as a writer help or did you stick to that structure that you came up with way back when?

BKV: “Well, I always say that the story of ‘Y’ is about the last boy on Earth becoming the last man on Earth. And I think of the time that I started writing ‘Y’ I sort of imagined, oh, this is the journey that I had just completed. I sort of felt that I was a man as I started writing it. Now I look back and think he was as much an idiot boy starting that story as I probably still am. I don’t know that I will ever fully grow up but, yeah, it’s been a strange journey. But, like I said, it’s the way I intended to end it from the very beginning.”

Ren&eacute: Why do you think this story has resonated so beyond the “typical” comic book reader? [I'm referring to such praise from Entertainment Weekly and actress Janeane Garofalo.]

BKV: “I would give all credit to Pia Guerra … We had a lot of discussions at the beginning of this that, I think having both of us grown up in comics, I think that it’s easy for both of us to take for granted that most people aren’t really familiar with the medium of comics. And we really wanted to work hard to make it as accessible as possible, that if you only ever read the Sunday comics in your local newspaper that you would be able to follow ‘Y.’ And I think that people sometimes confuse that with over-simplifying, but it’s actually much harder to make a comic book that your mom and dad will be able to read and follow and sort of have that immersive experience than it is to just sort of have a crazy, confusing exciting-to-look-at kind of page. So she really worked overtime making the book inviting and accessible to people who maybe didn’t grow up with comics and don’t love comics the way that we do.”

Ren&eacute: I’m really glad you mentioned Pia because her work has really been exquisite in this story and I think it is the perfect fit for it, not only in terms of accessibility but also in getting across the ideas in an understated way. Tell me about Pia’s palette for this because it seems to me I can’t imagine any other artist doing this, quite frankly.

BKV: “I couldn’t have been more fortunate to end up with [such] a collaborator for the book. I didn’t even do character descriptions. I didn’t say, ‘You know, for Yorick originally this is how tall he is or he has brown hair,’ or really anyone. I just wrote their dialog and their personalities and Pia immediately came back with these fully-formed figures. There was no back and forth about any of them. Her first stab at each of the main players was 100 percent right from the get go. She’s just very intuitive about creating characters. And I think more than most anyone working in comics you can tell that she has this acting background and that it has really helped me.

“I think starting out as a writer, I would really tend to overwrite and you write sort of wall-to-wall captions and you try to be Alan Moore, which I obviously am not. So Pia sort of freed me through her performances to write less and I think to just say more with fewer words … In almost any issue I’ll write the stage direction YORICK IS CONFUSED because Yorick is constantly confused by something. Pia has drawn Yorick confused 100 different ways and it’s never the same way twice. She always knows precisely what expression he should have at any given moment. I think issues 58 and 59 in particular, which are largely wordless for huge passages, [are] testament to her unbelievable power as a storyteller.”

Ren&eacute: About [SPOILER IN INVISO-TEXT IF YOU HAVEN'T YET READ "Y" NO. 58the death of Agent 355END SPOILER.] It was so shocking, yet, given the environment this story is set in, appropriate in the same breath. Still …

BKV: “I think I knew that if I didn’t get e-mails saying, ‘I hate you. I hope something terrible happens to your family,’ that we would have failed. And I got a lot of those e-mails. Unbelievable amount of ‘you suck’ and ‘you’re an awful person.’ And Pia, to her credit, I’d say more than any other time throughout the book really lobbied hard for a stay of execution. And just a testament to her, after we talked about it and decided this is the way the story has to be — I mean, there’s no question that she sold that moment. It’s hard for me to even look at the pages. I think there have been a lot of questions about why we did that and is that appropriate and to what end. I never like to explain or defend the book. I hope it speaks for itself. Certainly it will be further explored in issue number 60. But I’m grateful to anyone that has a powerful reaction to it, even if that one is hatred of me.”

Come back for more BKV tomorrow. And look for my review of “Y: The Last Man” No. 60 later this week.